Category: Values

Values – Prioritizing and Affirming

Values and Why They Are Important – Prioritizing and Affirming Your Own Values

Advice from Wendy Smith; Career Coach and Life Coach; author of The WiseWolf Job Search Pocket Book – order on Amazon

Values – Prioritizing and Affirming – understanding your own values is key to leading a happy and fulfilled life. Knowing them can guide you in deciding the work you want to do and even how you choose a life partner. Understanding them can help you deal with many of the challenges you will meet through life and how to make the best choice in different situations.

Prioritizing and Affirming Your Own Values

Prioritizing your most important values is difficult. You need to look deep inside yourself and be very honest.

When you make a decision you may realise you are having to deal with values that don’t ring true for you. And they may conflict. So, you will have to make a choice. This is when you need to know which value is more important to you. Without clarity such a conflict can cause great unhappiness.

Write down your most significant values; such as, integrity, freedom, status, financial recognition. But don’t put them in any particular order. Then look at the first two values and ask yourself, “If I could satisfy only one of these, which would I choose?”

It might help to visualize a situation in which you would have to make a choice. For example, compare the values of service and stability. Imagine that you must decide whether to sell your house and risk moving to another country to do work that could fulfill a long-held ambition. Or you can stay in your present job with more limited opportunities but keep your house! What would you decide?

Keep working through the list, by comparing each value with each one of the rest, until your list is in the correct order.

Reaffirm your values

Check your top-priority values, and make sure they fit with your life and your vision for yourself.

Do these values make you feel good about yourself?

Are you proud of your top three values?

Would you be comfortable and proud to tell your values to people you respect and admire?

Do these values represent things you would support, even if your choice isn’t popular.

Now, you need to consider how these values will be reflected in your life at work, at home or in relationships.

When you consider your values in decision-making, you will keep your sense of integrity. Reflecting your values increases your feeling of self-worth and self-confidence.

Making a value-based choice isn’t always be easy. But it is the way to happiness and peace of mind.

Wendy Smith is a career consultant, life coach and business coach with depth of experience in organisational development, management, coaching and personal development. That experience means she is equally at home helping clients find a new career direction, starting-up new businesses or dealing with life’s more challenging personal issues. If you would like help finding a job, with problems at work or at home, or with relationships, contact Wendy. Book your free 30 minute, no obligation, trial coaching session with Wendy Smith now at this Link

Understand Your Own Values

Understand your own values – understanding your own values is key to leading a happy and fulfilled life. Knowing your values is important. It can help in deciding the work you want to do. And, for example, in choosing a life partner. Understanding them helps you deal with many challenges you will meet through life. Also, how to make the best choice in difficult situations.

Understand your own values – but what are values?

Values are the important and lasting things you believe about life. They are measures by which you will usually judge yourself and others. When you live your life in accordance with your values you will feel comfortable. And you will feel at peace with yourself. That is if your values are positive and truly your own. If you choose those you think you should have, you won’t truly live according to your own values. This will usually make you feel miserable, guilty or angry. You will not feel fulfilled.

Values are usually fairly stable throughout life. We learn them young from our parents, teachers, our friends and from the media. But not all the values we learn when young are helpful. Times do change! Think, for example, about the value that some people learned when young about the “separate” roles of men and women. Or the values that some people have adopted about particular brands.

When you begin to understand your own values you can begin to make choices about which to hold on to. But also which to let go.

Working with a coach really can help you be clear about your values. And learn to live in harmony with them. Get in touch at the email address below – I offer a free half hour trial session by phone or Skype.

Wendy Smith is a career consultant, life coach and business coach with depth of experience in organisational development, management, coaching and personal development. That experience means she is equally at home helping clients find a new career direction, starting-up new businesses or dealing with life’s more challenging personal issues. You can contact her at wendy@wisewolfcoaching.com

Wendy has written a little eBook on how to get on with your boss and a book on job search – you can find all her books on Amazon at this link

Values and Why They Are Important Part 2 Determine your own values.

Wendy Mason is a Career Coach and Life Coach helping you to solve difficult problems at work and at home

This is second post in a short series on values. The first post considered what values and why are they important.

Understanding your own values is key to leading a happy and fulfilled life. Knowing them can guide you in deciding the work you want to do and even how you choose a life partner. Understanding them can help you deal with many of the challenges you will meet through life and how to make the best choice in different situations.

Defining Your Own Values

Defining your own values helps you discover what’s truly important to you.

A good way to to begin to do this is to look back on your life. Now, identify when you felt really good, and really confident that you were making good choices. Then identify the times when you were happiest

Find examples from both your personal/family life and your career. This will give you a balanced view.

Think about what you were you doing and who you were with. What other factors contributed to your happiness?

Think about the times when you were most proud. Why were you proud? What factors contributed to your feelings of pride?

When did you feel most fulfilled and satisfied?

Again, use both work and personal examples.

Now think about the words you would associate with your experience of happiness, pride, and fulfilment.

Aim for about 10 to 15 keywords similar to those on this list below to describe what you valued about the experience

Next time we’ll think about which values are most important to you. You will find the next post at this link on 25/02/14 http://wisewolftalking.com/2014/02/25/values-and-why-they-are-important-part-3-prioritizing-and-affirming-your-own-values/